Tools

Blog

Slave Lake Mayor Tyler Warman writes columns on a wide range of topics, including town council information, upcoming events, important budgetary issues, and local attractions. His blogs can be found here, and published in the Lakeside Leader the Wednesday after it appears online. If you have a comment for Mayor Warman on his blogs please reach out and fill out the Give Feedback form found here.

I’ll will admit, that over the last few weeks I have been a little quiet on blogs and that’s because for me June is typically crazy busy, and this past one was no exception.

I usually try to take some time off in July, and spend it with the kids, so blogs fall to the bottom of the list of things I want to get done.

Now, probably since we brought in photo radar council has gotten a lot of questions about photo radar and where the money from the tickets go?

To simplify it, Council receives a portion from all photo radar tickets issued within the Town of Slave Lake. Another portion of the ticket goes to the company that does the work, and the last portion of the ticket goes to the Province.

Recently Coucil passed a policy that governed where the portion of the ticket council collects is used. The Policy states that the money collect can never be used for operational expenses. The reason for this is to ensure that if a future council decides to get rid of Photo Radar, it will never impact the taxes in the Town.

Council wanted to use the money towards improving safety, within the community, or by making a one-time capital improvement to either a sports field or recreational facility.

There is also an option to use the funds collected to go towards future debt reduction.

The 2017 budget, this council decided to put some of the money collected, from photo radar, towards our parks and playgrounds in the Town.

We applied for a grant and were successful in securing $30,000 that had to be used towards rubber surfacing. Council also threw in $175,000 worth of photo radar money.

Now we wanted to make some improvements to the surface at the playground at Hilda Eben, and add some amenities to the South West Quadrant Park. After consideration, council decided that it made financial sense to put the rubber surface and more playground equipment at the South West Quadrant Park.

Hilda Eben Park, and Playground, while being one of the oldest parks in town would have cost more to upgrade, and this council decided that we would retro-fit the park at a future date. This includes the playground surface and boards, and its probably time to fix the benches that have sunk to ground level as well.

That $175,000, from photo radar, that council put into upgrading our parks, will go towards grading and paving a parking lot at the South West Quadrant Park. We will be installing three light standards at the park for more visibility at night. We are also excited to partner with SLIP volunteers, who maintain the outdoor rinks, to install a skating track at the South West Quadrant Park as well.

We understand that not everyone wants to play hockey so we think this could be a cool feature, and a draw to the park. The skating track is a new idea and so SLIP has agreed to work with us on its use for this year. If we don’t see usage, of the skating track, there is consideration of another outdoor rink at this park.

Council is also looking at long term options for this park as well, you might see increased lighting, benches, fire pits, a bicycle track, and some outdoor exercise equipment. But this is just a potential, as these ideas will all be debated at future council meetings.

So, hopefully this answers some of your questions about photo radar, and where the money that is collected from it goes. If you have any questions about the park upgrades, please feel free to contact our town office at 780-849-8000. Our administration is always here to help answer your questions.